Tag Archives: chopper

Accident investigators in the Bahamas are going well below the surface of the water to try to figure out what went wrong in the moments before a helicopter crashed after takeoff and killed seven people, including West Virginia coal magnate Chris Cline. The Air Accident Investigation Department of the Bahamas said via Twitter late Friday that salvage teams were conducting “underwater surveying and mapping of debris field.” The department said the operation has been underway since the crash of the Augusta AW139 chopper, which went down Thursday in waters just off Grand Cay after departing for Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Four American tourists and a Kenyan pilot were killed when their helicopter crashed on a remote island in a lake in northwest Kenya, police said Monday. “There were five people on board, four of them were US citizens and the pilot, Capt Marious Magonga,” the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement. Magonga was also a pilot for Kenya’s deputy president, William Ruto, who owned the crashed helicopter.

U.S. authorities ordered an end on Friday to so-called “doors off” helicopter rides unless passengers are equipped with quick-release restraints, following a crash in New York City last week that killed five people. The agency said it also will conduct a “top to bottom review” of its rules governing such flights to examine any potential misapplication that could create safety gaps for passengers. The pilot survived but all five passengers were killed on Sunday evening when a Eurocopter AS350 plunged into New York City’s East River while on a private “photo shoot” charter.

NEW YORK (AP) — A pilot who survived a helicopter crash that killed his five passengers told authorities he believed a passenger's bag might have hit an emergency fuel shutoff switch in the moments before the chopper went down, a federal official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The three British tourists killed when a sightseeing helicopter crashed into jagged rocks in the Grand Canyon have been named. Becky Dobson, 27, was on holiday with boyfriend Stuart Hill, 30, and his brother Jason Hill, 32, when they were killed in the helicopter crash at 0520 local time [1220 GMT] on Saturday. The group had been celebrating a birthday and were travelling aboard a Papillon Grand Canyon Helicopters aircraft near Quartermaster Canyon at the famous national park in Arizona, when it crashed and burst into flames.

Oscar Perez, a rogue helicopter pilot who vanished last year after dropping grenades on Venezuela’s Supreme Court, said Monday he and his companions were surrounded and pinned down by police marksmen. “They are firing at us with grenade launchers. Perez, a former elite police officer, is seen with other men in one of the videos, some of them armed.

An American military helicopter made an emergency landing on a beach in Okinawa Saturday, an official said, the latest in a series of accidents which have fuelled local opposition to US forces on the Japanese island. There were no immediate reports of injuries from the landing in Uruma, a local fire department official said. Immediate comment from the US military was not available.

A Russian helicopter that went down off the coast of Norway’s Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic this week has been found and the eight Russians on board are presumed dead, Norwegian rescue crews said on Sunday. The Mil Mi-8 chopper, carrying five crew and three scientists, went missing on Thursday as it was flying to Barentsburg from Pyramiden, a former mining community in Svalbard that is now a tourist site. It went down two or three kilometres from Barentsburg, a Russian mining community in the archipelago.

A Venezuelan helicopter pilot who vanished after dropping grenades on the Supreme Court has reappeared in an online video, as justices on Wednesday considered whether to hold a trial that would remove the country’s defiant chief prosecutor. Oscar Perez — who claims support from members of the military, police and public servants — urged Venezuelans in the video posted late Tuesday to “stand firm in the streets” in their protests against socialist President Nicolas Maduro. On Tuesday anti-government protesters blocked streets in Caracas and elsewhere.

An elite cop-turned-film star became the man of the hour Wednesday in the disaster movie that is Venezuela’s political crisis. With his tan and muscles, 36-year-old Oscar Perez may seem to have more in common with action fantasy idols like Vin Diesel than with your average Venezuelan cop. Now Venezuela is wondering whether his alleged “coup” attempt in a stolen helicopter in the skies over Caracas on Tuesday night was scripted or real.